Experts Question Google, Microsoft Child-Porn Measures

Google Inc. and Microsoft Inc. have agreed to measures to make it harder to access images of child pornography via their search engines.

Writing in a U.K. newspaper, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said: “While society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm. That’s why Internet companies like Google and Microsoft have been working with law enforcement for years to stop pedophiles sharing illegal pictures on the Web.”

Microsoft added in a statement: “Microsoft has a zero-tolerance approach to child-sexual-abuse content. If society is to stamp it out, then together we need to tackle the core problems of creation, distribution and consumption.”

The announcement comes ahead of a meeting on Monday called by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to review steps to block access to child-porn images.

“There is the possibility that those men who were interested in accessing images, and it was their first time, there may be some deterrent value,” she said. “However, having interviewed many indecent-image users in prison, I would say the vast majority are men who have entrenched problems…they are men who are networked, they know where to find images, so I think it is highly unlikely they will be using search engines.”

However, she called the move “an important first step, even if it won’t do much to deter or to help the police in terms of online detection.”

James Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP), the U.K. police body charged with tackling child abuse, told the BBC: “I don’t think this will make any difference. They [consumers of child-porn images] share them in the dark corners of the Internet…. These predators don’t use Google to search for the images or share them.”

When asked if the moves would make no difference, Mr. Gamble said, “It will prevent inadvertent access to illegal or inappropriate content which is on the open Web.”

However, a 2009 Dutch study published in Computer Law & Security Review reported: “No interviewed expert, authority or other person involved was able to refer to a case in which a ‘decent’ internetter was unexpectedly or incidentally confronted with child pornography on a website.”

CEOP’s 2013 threat analysis said, “The commercial distribution of IIOC [indecent images of children] on the open Internet is estimated to account for a very small percentage of the transactions taking place.”

The remainder of child-porn images are traded using peer-to-peer networks or on the so-called “dark Net”—a part of the Net that uses technology that renders it inaccessible to search engines. Google is working with others, including CEOP, to tackle the problem of peer-to-peer networks, but significant technical issues would need to be overcome.

The moves announced by Mr. Schmidt include blocking results from search terms, adding warnings to pages using terms, removing links to pages that feature abusive images, and technology that allows videos that have been deemed abusive to be tracked.

However, most of the measures announced have already been implemented. Google is a member of the Internet Watch Foundation, a U.K. organization that targets pornographic pictures of children. The foundation regularly produces reports of search terms associated with child porn and Internet addresses, URLs, of illegal material; Google already removes these URLs from its index, rendering them inaccessible via the search engine. Further, Google already has incorporated the blocked search terms into its algorithms.

Last month, for more than 13,000 unique search terms associated with more-explicit child-sexual-abuse terms, clear warning messages from Google and child-safety organizations have been displayed warning users of the consequences of their actions and pointing them toward expert help.

Google recently has attracted considerable adverse press coverage in the U.K. over its tax arrangements. Twice the company been summoned to answer questions by British lawmakers over its arrangements. Mr. Schmidt, defending the company’s arrangements, told the BBC in May: “Our position is very simple: Taxes are not optional; we pay the mandatory amount.”